A planets alliance should be displayed. I sort of took the idea from another game I saw, where the Planets Nick and alliance was show when you saw them. ofc we don't need to go as far as nicks. But Planets under a certain tag should be displayed. It takes out the hiding feature, and this works in many other games like EVE/WOW/Lineage etc, where a person is "tagged" with the alliance they represent. I think it would be cool, and eliminates the cowardice factor. This evens the playing field for noob alliances with no arby, and top alliances who have full coords by PT 120. All coords will be out reguardless at around tick 200. Why not just display them.

you know, whilst on the one hand i can see all the intle peeps being really cross about it, because they'll feel like it's a dumbing down of thier skills, I kinda miss the old days when there were tags.

and usually the major problem with this is that allianceless players (predominately new players) become blatently obvious targets from tick 72 as they will obviously get no help from their alliance (as they arent in one), and thus rely totally on their galaxy.

It also cripples the smaller alliances, or less active and generally less 'leet' alliances, as wakey is likely to point out shortly, for similar reasons.

I am a firm beleaver in this feature but i do see ware sov is coming from. Theirs no point in allianating the new players so that they are chosen out to be targets. And it takes a lot away from the alliances that put effort in to the intel side of the game.

It has benifits such as encouraging people to join alliances quickly which as you all probebly know is the only way to go in this game but it would leave those same people very vurnerable as their alliance could clearly be seen to be weak and thus would suffer heavy incoming.
Another benifit would be that it allows the smaller alliance to find their enemys easily ans target the effectivly. However it takes away form the bigger alliances who put skill and tactics into the hiding of their members within galaxys and the intel gathering on other alliances.

On the whole this idea has benifits and drawbacks for both big and small alliances and players however i beleave that the current system is fairest to all.

As Sovereign predicted I would it does hinder the smaller alliances more than it helps. The game encourages people now to attack harder targets but still players pick on alliances and players considered a 'soft touch' while leaving the 'tougher' but better targets alone. If you force the display of the alliance you are instantly labelling all the unaligned and smaller alliances as free roids which isnt good for the games attempt to appeal to more people. No matter what some people may try and claim constant over the top bashing does drive players away and enough of this happens now without making it easier for everyone to identify these easy targets

__________________
WakeyPD and Suggestions Moderator
Co-founder of [F-Crew]The Farnborough CrewCos anything else is just an alliance
Join our public channel at #f-crew

This would be a very bad thing. At the moment, most alliance players (when picking their targets) aren't told the alliance of their target. Why? It's because alliances like 1up and LCH are intimidating to attack, because of their good record in getting their members defence. Likewise alliances such as F-Crew, xVX, ToF, etc, are considered easy targets by many (whether they are or not). As such, the top alliances would be strengthed by this.

Meanwhile, alliances that specialise in hiding their co-ords would suffer as well. Certain alliances have very good records of keeping their members hidden for far longer than tick 200, etc. Why punish them?

how come in other games public tags do not result in complete and utter bashing of the smaller tags and the tag-less.

surely for example if a small alliance demonstrated to the community that it wa sbeing bashed by the bigger alliances the community would take action - or are the current players of this game really that selfish?

Actually alliances like 1up, LCH etc only can grow that easily in the beginning because nobody knows their coords right away.

If coords for alliances would be public the major alliances would surely start fighting each other a lot earlier.
Also people from the top alliances would no longer need to fake nick, which would lead to a probably much more friendly atmosphere on IRC and galaxy forums. Fake-Nicking people rarely get too much in touch with their galaxy, only as much as necessary.

And let us face it: smaller alliances members will be bashed once they are decent sized targets, no matter if their alliance is known or not.

True heartless. I think the community is mature enough not to bash the smaller alliances, and surely they know they can't win the round by doing it.
Earlier fights, no real reason to fake nick and all this bogus relay channel stuff, sounds like a round with more fights and better coordination from the little alliances as well. Now when you hear a noob alliance say that they are war'ing with another noob alliance, you know now that they actually have thier oppenents coords. I always wondered if they had each others coords or not.
hehe

True heartless. I think the community is mature enough not to bash the smaller alliances, and surely they know they can't win the round by doing it.
Earlier fights, no real reason to fake nick and all this bogus relay channel stuff, sounds like a round with more fights and better coordination from the little alliances as well. Now when you hear a noob alliance say that they are war'ing with another noob alliance, you know now that they actually have thier oppenents coords. I always wondered if they had each others coords or not.
hehe

And how long have you been playing this game Chika. You will notice a number of thread on the various forums about people bashing smaller players and how its killing the game and then yo think that this info wouldnt be exploited. If you dont you are extreamly naive.

Also smaller alliances ill often rely heaverly on a small core of players to gain a good rank and then drag the others up. Now if you see a player from Coven sitting in the top 100 surrounded by 1up players which one will you end upo hitting, you will hit the coven planet not the 1up as its an easier target.

Now I know your going to say, that happens anyway as we gather our intel however thats not the same. An alliance gathers the intel on you its that alliance who has it, if another alliance needs it its work for them to do. Its not giving everyone this info.

The small alliance have a hard enough time as it is without making their game harder.

__________________
WakeyPD and Suggestions Moderator
Co-founder of [F-Crew]The Farnborough CrewCos anything else is just an alliance
Join our public channel at #f-crew

how come in other games public tags do not result in complete and utter bashing of the smaller tags and the tag-less.

surely for example if a small alliance demonstrated to the community that it wa sbeing bashed by the bigger alliances the community would take action - or are the current players of this game really that selfish?

I think you have got it... the playerbase is (on the whole) selfish and unpleasant.

If tags were never taken away I wouldn't complain. It was something I liked in the earlier rounds and with so many players, it wasn't so much of a problem. Now we have 2K players, it will unfortunately be a problem due to the mentality of the majority of these players.

Funny how so many players claim that alliances are their only reason for playing and will quit if anything happens to balance the game away from alliances, its often these players who refuse to tag.

Its a real shame that you cannot display your alliance colours with pride!

Please bear in mind that much of what I say is intended to cause discussion. It may not reflect my personal favouritism or even have any involvement with my situation. In short bitching at me is pointless, so discuss the idea :-)

And how long have you been playing this game Chika. You will notice a number of thread on the various forums about people bashing smaller players and how its killing the game and then yo think that this info wouldnt be exploited. If you dont you are extreamly naive.

Also smaller alliances ill often rely heaverly on a small core of players to gain a good rank and then drag the others up. Now if you see a player from Coven sitting in the top 100 surrounded by 1up players which one will you end upo hitting, you will hit the coven planet not the 1up as its an easier target.

Now I know your going to say, that happens anyway as we gather our intel however thats not the same. An alliance gathers the intel on you its that alliance who has it, if another alliance needs it its work for them to do. Its not giving everyone this info.

The small alliance have a hard enough time as it is without making their game harder.

I can understand your view wakey. But for it to have any water, it would mean that PA have one of the crappiest communities on the inet. We aren't the crapiest community. This idea has been proven to work in vast other games. It can work here also.
Noone thought showing a planets race would work when PAX was introduced. Look we deal with it. Its way easier to pick out the easy cath target now, but it actually fit. I think the same goes for showing alliance tags. You joined the alliance because you thought they could protect you, or to have fun, or to learn the game. Whats the harm of not showing that you are idd a part of that alliance.

Looks like this is another suggestion destined to go down without being approved/declined... ffs this suggestion can be implemented so easily it should really be considered.

I agree with the pro side, so I'll just regurgitate some arguments to keep this discussion going.

I feel this idea would benefit the small people. Large alliances know who belongs to what alliance using finely tuned homo-erotic spying and data collection techniques much faster then small ones who don't have outside tools such as an arbiter. Basically as things stand, large alliances already have the benefit of the proposed feature (by t200 anyways) and small alliances don't.

That point is why wakey's argument doesn't make any sense whatsoever to me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wakey

Also smaller alliances ill often rely heaverly on a small core of players to gain a good rank and then drag the others up. Now if you see a player from Coven sitting in the top 100 surrounded by 1up players which one will you end upo hitting, you will hit the coven planet not the 1up as its an easier target.

Now I know your going to say, that happens anyway as we gather our intel however thats not the same. An alliance gathers the intel on you its that alliance who has it, if another alliance needs it its work for them to do. Its not giving everyone this info.

I think big alliances will continue to chose the same targets they do now, particularly if a war is involved because this game encourages that type of game play. For an alliance to do well and rise in ranks, they need to hit allies bigger or near them. If a big alliance wanted to seek out and attack the larger players of small allies they could do it already; afaik they rarely do because it's a retarded (not to mention mean and cowardly) strategy.

Solo bashing will happen regardless, and people who are in a position to do so know how to find a suitable victim and have some kind of connection to an arby anyways.

I believe galaxies would be tighter as a result of this. More trust, less secret gal chans, less fake nicking and more attention put on helping newbs and getting them into to friendly allies,, rather then being scared about your coords being leaked.

Solo players with decent scores might be seen as recruits for small/medium allies.

It could add a fun factor to smaller guys (like me ) who have no idea what the **** is going on politically. We could follow along in wars and get a better idea of the battles going on just looking at the rankings. Right now this knowledge is rather exclusive to the top echelon. Quite simply, knowing who you're attacking and being attacked by is alot more fun.

Bashers will be alot easier to spot and you'll know what ally they're in.

I think it could be a good thing to bring back the tags. Especially in the beginning.
The smaller players could avoid attacking the big alliances by accident. Planets of these big alliances get defence most of the time, which would result in a fleetless player. To be without a fleet that early in the game is quite discouraging.
If a small alliance wants to do a big thing, like take down a planet of the leading alliance, they can just look around in the universe and pick a medium sized one.

Alliance hoppers:
If a big player decides to alliance hop, everyone can see he's without an alliance. A big allianceless player...
Great opportunity for a top20 alliance to do a lemmingrun and get high xp roids.

And about attacking the big coven planet by big alliances. Think about the bad pr on AD? Everyone knows who attacked him...

Alliance hoppers:
If a big player decides to alliance hop, everyone can see he's without an alliance. A big allianceless player...
Great opportunity for a top20 alliance to do a lemmingrun and get high xp roids.

Seems to me you like that and i don't know why.

Quote:

Originally Posted by paolo

And about attacking the big coven planet by big alliances. Think about the bad pr on AD? Everyone knows who attacked him...

Every time this discussion comes up my gut instinct is to approve it. There may be some negative issues in the short term, but I feel it would be beneficial in the long term as attitudes start to change.

My next run through things approving/declinin etc will probably be on Friday...

Maybe this should be discussed in the alliance rep channels and forum too? Every alliance who is interested can be added there, so can have a voice.

And i am against it btw :-)

Although fake nicking and relay channels can be cumbersome, the disadvantages are too big: big alliances can gather intel fast as it is, small alliances will be targetted more, and lone planets will be deroided fast.

if you want to solve the relay channel thing (i hate it too), then simply make a buton : Report to alliance. People without alliance also have this button, so noone can see if you actually are member of one.

If you use the alliance part of the PA account to show reported incoming to the Defense Commanders, then it is all neat and tidy.

I feel this idea would benefit the small people. Large alliances know who belongs to what alliance using finely tuned homo-erotic spying and data collection techniques much faster then small ones who don't have outside tools such as an arbiter. Basically as things stand, large alliances already have the benefit of the proposed feature (by t200 anyways) and small alliances don't.

I disagree.
I don't believe you're serously suggesting that accurate intel (being just as valuable as ships and roids) should be given out to everyone with no effort involved. Yes, big alliances have access to this information because they put in alot of work to get it. Just because you seem to think spying and intelligence is "homo-erotic" doesn't mean it's not a classic part of PA.
Do you think it's fair to give out extra roids/ships to the small alliances with no effort? No? Then why give them the intel? They both take effort to build up and there's no reason to hand stuff out to people just because they put less effort in.

And on the flipside of the coin, having alliance tags shown on gal page is just going to result in more incoming on the smaller alliances. When you have a gal raid that features clearly tagged planets in 1up, LCH, ToF, F-crew and Peniz-alliance, which will the average player take first? I don't think it'll be the ones in that #1 ranked alliance, do you?
The only people hitting the leaders will be the other large allies who are perfectly capable of mapping out hostile coord lists in the first 150 ticks anyway.

__________________in my sig i write down all my previous co-ords and alliance positions as if they matter because I'm not important enough to be remembered by nickname alone.

Perhaps alliances tags should just be visible to your own galaxy. It would eliminate the problem of newbies being identified as potential targets because they have no alliance (or a very weak alliance), with all of the benefits of removing fake nicking and building trust within the galaxy.

__________________
“They were totally confused,” said the birdman, whose flying suit gives him a passing resemblance to Buzz Lightyear in Toy Story. “The authorities said that I was an unregistered aircraft and to fly, you need a licence. I told them, ‘No. To fly, you need wings’.”

VGN puts a lot of work into its intel, with a special intel officer. We have reaped the rewards of this, being able to target specific alliances at will. At the same time, it's been quite hard for alliances to find our co-ords, because we put a lot of work into hiding our members. With our member count, this is a priority. It's only now that our co-ords are coming out due to news scans, etc.

Why should this hard work be taken out of the game?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Remy

if you want to solve the relay channel thing (i hate it too), then simply make a buton : Report to alliance. People without alliance also have this button, so noone can see if you actually are member of one.

A planets alliance should be displayed. I sort of took the idea from another game I saw, where the Planets Nick and alliance was show when you saw them. ofc we don't need to go as far as nicks. But Planets under a certain tag should be displayed. It takes out the hiding feature, and this works in many other games like EVE/WOW/Lineage etc, where a person is "tagged" with the alliance they represent. I think it would be cool, and eliminates the cowardice factor. This evens the playing field for noob alliances with no arby, and top alliances who have full coords by PT 120. All coords will be out reguardless at around tick 200. Why not just display them.

It is idd better to display the alliance to which a planet belongs, kinda like the old days where tags were shown before the planets.

Good idea, chika

P.S. Maybe to filter out the allianceless pple etc, why not make the tag appear once an alliance gets into the top 10 or top 5 or only top 3? Combine that with what rob proposed (only galaxy view) ... then a member in an alliance below the limit will have no tag, just like an allianceless player.

Seems everyone with experience is putting in the word, so this may as well be my first post in this forum.

I have played Pa b4 (r3 and r4 i believe), and we had most gals tagged with the alliances in-gal. I saw some bashing yes, but i also saw people discussing things openly in-gal.

I came back to Pa because i liked the game as it was. i still do like it now, but this fake-nicking part just sucks... people in-gal always trying to get "intel" from other in-gal m8s (rephrasing: "that should be m8s")

I am in an active galaxy with good players and i don't even know who i'm playing with ffs... funny part is most of them already know who is in wich alliance... except for us n00bs who have no big (or small, for that matter) alliance.....

I know there are downsides to this (hell.. i was ViruS back then and i got crushed on account of that Tag on my Gal), but i think it levels up things and above all, it gives new players a chance to survive, as they have one more (extremely) important info on their targets.

So, as for the noob oppinion (wich doesn't go for much), i agree completely with this Tagging idea.

For the record: i don't fake-nick either in IRC or Pa, and the time i have to just to be allowed to play or have an alliance, i'll quit (has happened before...).. if you want to hit me only condittion (and also hardest part) will be: you have to be small enough to do it ;o)

how come in other games public tags do not result in complete and utter bashing of the smaller tags and the tag-less.

surely for example if a small alliance demonstrated to the community that it wa sbeing bashed by the bigger alliances the community would take action - or are the current players of this game really that selfish?

because in other games.. you aren't restricted to defending your own alliance only. You fight under a certain tag, but apart from end rankings it doesn't affect a thing. In planetarion you are down to your alliance when it comes to saving your roids. And since smaller alliances obviously have less firepower to use in defence they will practically guarantee no defence fomr out of gal giving you a way better chance on roids/XP.

If you wouldn't be restricted to alliance help only you can ask a friend to help out too (or any other.

On the other hand it has to do with the other players themselves too, i see so many ppl attacking around their bash limit for easy roids. They just don't seem to understand that gains from hitting decent targets (above your own value) are far higher than just roiding 'nubjes'.

Maybe we need to see a return of a reducing roid cap instead of a bash limit. For example comparing attacking fleet value with the targets fleet value and calc roid gains from there (if attacking fleet value is above 75% of the targets total fleet value, the roid cap reduces by some fancy formula). This would give smaller planets a more fair fight as overwhelming them won't gain the attacker much, in effect making n00b bashing a waste of time).

__________________[Vision] in a lost dream, contributing to The 5th Element at present

Perhaps alliances tags should just be visible to your own galaxy. It would eliminate the problem of newbies being identified as potential targets because they have no alliance (or a very weak alliance), with all of the benefits of removing fake nicking and building trust within the galaxy.

i like it too, but i can already see people creating free planets just to get exiled and hop around the universe to gather informations
"guys, i have no time play this round", "no prob, make a free alliance hopper planet, don't talk, no gal-irc and login once a day and give out the tags pls"

Perhaps alliances tags should just be visible to your own galaxy. It would eliminate the problem of newbies being identified as potential targets because they have no alliance (or a very weak alliance), with all of the benefits of removing fake nicking and building trust within the galaxy.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kal

I like that idea

OMG NO, if yo are gonna do that seriously you might as well make them there for all to see, because alliance who have the intel department to figure alliances out from scratch (with no starting point), would now have 60/70 galaxys worth of coords to start with (seriously who is not going to pass the intel onto their alliance). AGAIN bigger allies get intel first (same situation as currently). You have to either go one way or the other, the main arguement for this idea seams to be to help n00bs pick better targets less likely to get defence, a little inside information for ya, YOU CANNOT ATTACK INGAL!!!!!

I don't know if it's just me that thinks this, but I assume when you're talking about disadvantages for smaller players with less contacts, you mean an increase in being roided right?

thinking as say a 1up member, i'm only going to roid the alliances i'm at war with, but then i'm a member of a disaplined alliance so you'd expect that. So tagging up some rank 30 alliance is not going to matter one hoot to my targetting choice. So who is it going to matter to?

probably the rank 10 - 15 allies, or even these days the 5+ alliances who will opt for easy roids rather than the chance to win by attacking strategically, because they've decided winning is unachievable anyway. And what you're giving them, is information about which planets belong to allies they should fear, and which don't. except they already know this..... they have a golden rule, don't attack someone bigger than you, as that indicates they're better than you and thus probably in a better ally. And if i'm intellignet enough a player to know that i can actually try to sneak in a raid on a biggish guy in a bigger gal with even bigger planets than him, i'm not going to base which one of say 3 planets i hit in terms of his alliance as a fixed rule, but rather on which ally i know is getting most incs that night and is drained, because i'm smart see?

infact what it will do, is allow the planets being hit repeatedly, to identify who is doing it. and with that knowledge you can apply playground rebuttals which is stand and fight back or go down as the softie, be that to fight with military, or politically, call out an alliance for not hitting its supposed targets, or even worse, providing proof for "n00bie bash0ring".

OMG NO, if yo are gonna do that seriously you might as well make them there for all to see, because alliance who have the intel department to figure alliances out from scratch (with no starting point), would now have 60/70 galaxys worth of coords to start with (seriously who is not going to pass the intel onto their alliance). AGAIN bigger allies get intel first (same situation as currently). You have to either go one way or the other, the main arguement for this idea seams to be to help n00bs pick better targets less likely to get defence, a little inside information for ya, YOU CANNOT ATTACK INGAL!!!!!

I disagree - I think its good to keep the info in the hands of the alliances - big alliances are unlikely to do organised raids on small alliances, at least not regularly. The danger of having this info public is that it would make solo attacking easier for thoose that do solo bashing.

So giving the info out in gal prevents an increase in solo bashing, but forces galaxy members to trust each other

But Kal, galaxy members don't trust each other. Alliances always come before galaxies these days, so it will all be automatically fed through to x's HC or intel officers.

We'll then see a big advantage for the large alliances, even those with comparatively low skill levels. Member count will become important, especially early on.

Kal, I can only conclude that your 4 rounds away from Planetarion has put you in the same position as the creators used to be in. You come up with a lot of ideas, but a lack of experience in playing post-PaX Planetarion means that a lot of them just die a death. This idea is great for alliances like Tides of Fire and F-Crew, who have a lot of members. It's terrible for alliances like VGN and Reunion, who spend a lot of pre-round time preparing to hide their members' co-ords. It's an art, one that you seem determined to abolish from Planetarion.

Hell there were times, when gals would scream out their tags fairly early on, to achieve an entirely different outcome, now people would only ever tag gals say, in like the last week (not that it would matter any but hey ho) just incase 1 extra person of influence gets to know who is where. And i'm not so sure that's a good thing, and personally I certainly believe that the mixing of groups and the forming of new friendships or mutually benificial agreements is what keeps the community going, something which has steadily dwindled . forcing gals to co-operate more seems to me to be a step in the right direction.

oh and (making 2 posts in quick succession, guilty as charged) once upon a time we had planet tags, they were taken away and people complained. Now we've not had them for a long time, and people complain about the notion of re introducing them. Most of the complaints could be put down to people hating change, something for which PA is notorious.... (but it keeps the game interesting)

MadNRisky, GOOD points. People act as though solo bashing isn't extremely common right now with the small-average guys. While I said some of the things you mentioned, you seem to be more coherent and focused Hope you aren't ignored.

Quote:

Originally Posted by XtotheY

Do you think it's fair to give out extra roids/ships to the small alliances with no effort? No? Then why give them the intel? They both take effort to build up and there's no reason to hand stuff out to people just because they put less effort in.

The value of ships, roids and exp is determined in game by value income and score. The value of intel gathering is more intangable but has a limit once your arby is complete. It isn't hard coded into the game (you don't get spy points for running to your hc with a hot tip). There is no ingame arbiter or any reference to this 'classic feature' in the manual. Anyone can make ships, attack, scan etc. Only those in good alliances have access to an accurate arbiter, or an hc to mooch the info off of. Basically you're comparing apples and a magic sack of fertalizer. How you use it determines how much larger your apples will grow.

What's my point? That magic sack of shit that all top allies use has evolved OUTSIDE the game round after round to the point where the elite can get a complete arby after 150 ticks. All new and most small/medium allies are missing out on a big part of the game, the joy of basic knowledge and seeing their little wars take place. I'm a peon for a biggish alliance and I still don't know who the **** we're fighting unless I keep asking.. (at least i have that much) It's pretty lame that only the people on top know who's fighting who.

If all planets were tagged, there would still be an intel game to play for top alliances to get that edge. Spying would exist and finding the nicks of your enemies to take out weak or strong links...

Why bother finding out the nicks of your enemy? It doesn't help in the slightest. It's a perk, but nothing more.

Besides, it's a myth that even the top alliances have complete arbiters by tick 150. In fact, most are still roiding around in the dark, with little more than half an alliance revealed. I'd say they have fairly complete arbiters by tick 400 though.

Next point...what's wrong with taking the initiative and creating your own external website/tools? The in-game alliance stuff just isn't enough to run a proper alliance on, not for any length of time. I know Angels managed it, but comparing them to normal players is like comparing apples and oranges.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MAdnRisKy

Furball it's become a neccessary art.

Hell there were times, when gals would scream out their tags fairly early on, to achieve an entirely different outcome, now people would only ever tag gals say, in like the last week (not that it would matter any but hey ho) just incase 1 extra person of influence gets to know who is where.

It's hard-coded alliances that have done this, not that I think it's a bad thing. Your alliance is now the only place where you can get defence from, whereas pre-PaX it could come from anywhere in the universe. The member limit has meant that one or two alliances can never dominate, whereas pre-PaX they could (see Furgion or Eclipse/ToT r9).

Hmm, it would take certain aspects out of the game, some of which would be positive in certain ways, but would also take some of the charm out of it imo (inter gathering etc) I would be for keeping it the way it is atm, don't see any big problems with how it is that have to be corrected.

__________________
<Zhil> I order the immediate return of my property
<Zhil> No 1up member should steal from another
<[MO]Forest> no 1up should attcak a 1up gal without permission form hc
<Zhil> I am HC
<Zhil> I gave myself permission
<[MO]Forest> i meant a proper hc, not a hc who would suicide into his MO's fleet

Yeah, this would heighten game play i beleive, and wars would be wars for everyone, small alliances and Big. Intel is a given for big alliances. People were coordinating on 1up VERy early this round. I agree with the free planets not being able to see the tags, but everyone else should. I highly doubt that huge alliances will organize an attack on a top 20 allaince. :|

Pretty much my point. The whole intel stuff would still be around - but to find out what politics your enemy is currently planning and so on. It would also reduce the amount of false accusations and propaganda would actually get some backup facts on the one side, while an increase in quality on the other.

To furball: Since you're an hc and intel guy you'd be a higher authority on the matter, but finding out someone's nick could help you in observing their onlines times, right? If you find out one of your enemies is going to be gone for a day or two and leaves his fleets at home you could use that info to your advantage as well. Occasionaly someone leaks an attack on a gal or ally, and you could connect the nicks from the bot to planets... RIGHT? Spying and intel wouldn't be nearly as significant, but there would still be an edge to be gained.

What tick arbiters are actually completed is hardly the point. I'd put arbiter tools in the same vein as bcalcs and sandmans, as they're all external tools. It would be shit if that stuff was only available to top alliance members. If I had the time and ability I would make a public access arbiter -- if this change isn't implemented I hope someone does

Hmm, a public access arbiter. Frankly I can't imagine anything worse as far as community tools go.

As for knowing peoples' nicks, it's a nice thing to have but I've never had the time to exploit it. My e-penis felt all funny and got very long when I found a couple of 1up HCs by tick 150, but I'm not that bothered tbqfh.

Quote:

finding out someone's nick could help you in observing their onlines times, right? If you find out one of your enemies is going to be gone for a day or two and leaves his fleets at home you could use that info to your advantage as well. Occasionaly someone leaks an attack on a gal or ally, and you could connect the nicks from the bot to planets... RIGHT?

Nah. Their galaxy will just report their incomings anyway. Again, no real long-term use compared to the huge number of other things a HC has to be getting on with.

why? cause you wouldn't be as important and have as much power? people in the community would probably end up working togeather and communicating more imo. i'm much more in favor of ingame tagging then resorting to that.

you would have alot more free time since cords would be public,, but i'll take your word for it. didn't know that finding out your enemies idle times was pointless. and as heartless has pointed out, intel would focus more on the politics side of things.

As for Heartless' suggestion that intel would focus on politics, I don't think that that can ever replace alliance intel. Usually political intel comes to you rather than you going out searching for it.

As for Heartless' suggestion that intel would focus on politics, I don't think that that can ever replace alliance intel. Usually political intel comes to you rather than you going out searching for it.

Of course it can. Primary focus of intel gathering at the moment is to get a coordlist of your enemy alliances. Then you use that coord list to figure the true strength of them. Once this is accomplished, coordlist usage is pretty much leading down to politics - i.e. "Whom do we hit tonight to scare them away from us?" or "Whom should we avoid because they could turn out helpful?".

If the coord list is away, the political game will go on: "Who has secret naps with whom?"

The only (dis)advantage of showing alliance tags really is that you cannot lie that easily anymore in any propaganda attempts, as anyone can check the universe situation in details. A public arbiter, if done properly, could probably achieve the same - even though with a delay of 200 or 300 ticks compared to displaying it directly.

In this case, I do ultimately believe that the benefits outweight the doubts by far.